Perhaps inevitably, SEGA and Gearbox Software are named as defendants in a
lawsuit over Aliens: Colonial Marines, the movie-based first-person
shooter that met with a good deal of discontent after its recent release (thanks
durandal).
Polygon reports the suit was filed in the Northern District of California
court by law firm Edelson LLC on behalf of plaintiff Damion Perrine, saying the
game was falsely advertised. SEGA Europe has already
received a
scolding over how the visuals in the game did not live up to what was shown
in prerelease trailers, and now this is being taken to the courts in the U.S.
They offer the following excerpt from the court papers:

"Each of the
'actual gameplay' demonstrations purported to show consumers exactly what they
would be buying: a cutting edge video game with very specific features and
qualities," the claim reads. "Unfortunately for their fans, Defendants never
told anyone — consumers, industry critics, reviewers, or reporters — that their
'actual gameplay' demonstration advertising campaign bore little resemblance to
the retail product that would eventually be sold to a large community of
unwitting purchasers."

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Two obvious comments regarding this: when's the last time you saw a fast food company sued over the fact that their ads never match the product and on the pc side it was largely fixed in the huge patch they put out. Near as I can tell the lawsuit is dead before it even starts, which is sorta a shame because this is the sort of crap companies get away with all of the time.

I'd like to think that issues like these in general have a big effect on public opinion, but the game still sold decently. Not to mention debacles like d3 and sim city haven't really deterred people, sure they complain, but a large chunk still buy the product. Last thing, the regarding preorders, I preorder things when there's a monetary incentive, for example I got xcom for $38 on release, otherwise I agree that there's rarely any point to preordering anything.